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Foreclosures in the Neighborhood

A story by Paul Knight in this week’s Houston Press adds a little color to the Houston foreclosure map:

Houston’s 77449 ZIP code, on the northwest side, made the top 100 in the nation for 2007. The area saw rapid growth in the early part of the decade, with retail strip centers and a sea of new homes popping up almost overnight.

“They started developing that area really aggressively,” says Erion Shehaj, a Houston realtor who specializes in foreclosed homes. “Like clockwork…[foreclosures] have been popping up one after another, because they were pushing them to people that couldn’t really afford them in the first place.”

Large signs are now planted along the roadside, advertising housing deals such as “Inventory Clearance!” and “Closeout Specials.”

One subdivision in the area that was hit particularly hard is Bear Creek Meadows. The neighborhood was developed about five years ago, with houses priced in the $120,000 range and marketed to first-time buyers.

Below the fold: More on Bear Creek Meadows, plus a few photos to illustrate Knight’s reporting on foreclosure cleanups.

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Knight continues:

There’s little variation in the construction, apart from the color of the brick. Most homes are lined with khaki-colored siding. On almost every street, with names such as River Bottom Road and Cannon Fire Drive, properties are now vacant.

Bear Creek Meadows has also suffered because developers sold packages of homes to buyers who planned to rent out the properties.

“The builders that don’t care about the integrity of the neighborhood, they were selling to pseudo-investors,” Shehaj says. “They hit hard times, and this is what ­happens.”